“Flint has pulled through a difficult journey, and is now standing on the verge of great potential and promise … Flint is a community that has been built and sustained on the fierce resilience of its residents, and we see the Firebird as a symbol of that resilience.” — Costa Papista, president of the Flint Firebirds, on the OHL team’s nickname (March 16, 2015)

***

Outsiders knew it. Insiders knew it. The Ontario Hockey League knew it.

Under the control of owner Rolf Nilsen, the 2015-16 Flint Firebirds were a dysfunctional mess, and the situation wasn’t going to fix itself.

“There was no manual for dealing with what had happened in Flint,” OHL commissioner David Branch says now. “It was certainly something that we’ve never experienced before.”

How do you bring order to a toxic environment, to a situation so unfamiliar and so bizarre?

We’ll get to that in a bit. First, a refresher on the months-long Firebirds saga:

• On Nov. 8, 2015, Nilsen fires coaches John Gruden, Dave Karpa and Petr Jonak. Playing time for Nilsen’s son, so-so OHL defenceman Hakon Nilsen, is the main point of contention. Ice time is the ultimate currency in junior hockey.

• Flint players quit en masse in response to Nilsen’s knee-jerk dismissals. The walkout forces Nilsen’s hand; the next day, he rehires the same three coaches with three-year contract extensions.

• Sensing potential future conflicts of interest, Branch sends a firm, written warning to Nilsen, who signs off on the document and agrees to end all meddling with hockey operations.

• Over a span of about 90 days, Nilsen violates the terms several times. Most notably, he hires Sergei Kharin as a “special advisor” to ownership. Kharin moves shadily, at one point completing a trade without the consultation of the club’s general manager.

• On Feb. 18, Gruden and Karpa were fired again and the players refused to practice under Kharin, now the interim coach. The OHL responds again. Among other penalties, the league suspends Nilsen and Kharin until further notice.

Branch and trusted colleague Joe Birch embark on a four-hour drive from Toronto to Flint. The objective upon arrival: stop the bleeding. Immediately.

So how does a recently relocated franchise recover from such a dramatic setback?

***

Step 1: Target the root of the problem

Many may not realize that Nilsen, the villain in the story, remains the Firebirds’ owner. He is powerless from a hockey perspective, though. Following a third-party investigation, the OHL in April suspended the Norwegian billionaire “from being directly or indirectly involved” with hockey operations for five years.

They also fined him $250,000 and stripped the club of its third-overall selection in the 2016 OHL draft. In addition, if Branch’s orders are not followed, the league can force the sale of the team, which Nilsen owns outright.

“The issue, in our view,” Branch says, “was solely Mr. Nilsen’s difficult time controlling his emotions and channeling them in the right way.”

By all accounts, Nilsen — who was unavailable for an interview for this story — has been on his best behaviour since the spring ruling. There have been “no red flags,” Branch says, and Nilsen is erring on the side of caution. (He recently inquired about having dinner with new GM George Burnett and the coaching staff, which is perfectly OK.)

Head coach Ryan Oulahen — who, along with Burnett and associate coach Eric Wellwood, accepted the OHL-appointed position in May — reports zero interference on Nilsen’s part.

“It’s been exactly what we thought it would be,” Oulahen says. “There’s been certain rules set in place and that’s been totally abided by.”

A survey of a dozen OHL executives, scouts and agents yielded similar responses. One rival executive says, “No news is good news. It tells me there’s a lot of stability. It looks like they’ve righted the ship.”

Nilsen, who earned his fortune in the marine industry, can file for a return to normal circumstances after three years of good behaviour. For what it’s worth, Nilsen did not appeal the five-year ban and, at the time, said reinstatement is a goal.

“There’s a lot of factors and a long road to go yet,” Branch says of possible reinstatement. “I wouldn’t want to speculate at this point as to what may or may not happen. All I can say is that we’re closing in on the halfway mark of this season and it’s been a very enjoyable experience.”

Hakon Nilsen — the 18-year-old stuck in the middle of a storm fed almost singlehandedly by his father — remains on the Firebirds roster. Sidelined by an injury for a short period, the blueliner has two points in 21 games this season. He is a third-pairing defenceman and is receiving the appropriate ice time for a player of his calibre.

“He’s certainly bought in, just like everyone else on our team,” Oulahen says. “It’s been a really, really good situation.”

“Hakon’s a good kid,” captain Alex Peters says, “and he was put in a tough spot. I think he handled himself well. He’s an important member of our hockey team.”

***

Step 2: Avoid making any big splashes

At the end of the tumultuous 2015-16 regular season (Flint missed the playoffs by 10 points), the OHL could press the reset button — on its own terms.

The league did not entertain the idea of leaving the blue-collar central Michigan city following a single season — “there were never any second thoughts on our mind,” Branch says — so a path was forged.

There was no manual for dealing with what had happened in Flint. It was certainly something that we’ve never experienced before

“We knew what we had to do,” says Birch, who assumed a director of hockey operations role with the Firebirds in February and remains involved in a consulting role. “We knew, for the upcoming season, hiring people that could immediately have a positive impact on the culture and on the environment was important.”

Burnett, a veteran junior hockey man who got his OHL start nearly 30 years ago, was a prudent choice for GM, given his reputation as a no-nonsense disciplinarian. The Hamilton Bulldogs had just let him go as coach/GM. The OHL pounced.

“I wish I could say that I knew the appointment of George Burnett would be as positive and rewarding as it has been. I wasn’t absolutely sure because of the nature and potential volatility, you might say, in Flint,” Branch says. “But he, in fact, has been the ideal person to go in there.”

With little consultation, the OHL hired the coaches as well, two up-and-comers in 31-year-old Oulahen and 26-year-old Wellwood. Both had some coaching experience and, as recently retired players, could relate to Flint players on a personal level.

Soon after, goal-scoring forward Ty Dellandrea was the next step forward for the post-mayhem Firebirds. The fifth-overall pick in the OHL draft committed to the organization a couple of weeks into its new era.

“Obviously we had a bunch of questions, right?” Dellandrea says of the deliberation with his family and his agent. “But we talked with some people from the OHL and around the league and we knew we weren’t going to be in any harm. We were pretty confident from the start.”

Word spread quickly. Six other 2016 draftees signed up. The OHL, a source noted, had tidily “smoothed things over” in a short time.

“Parents of young players, in particular, when you sit in their living room for the first time and talk about your program, you have to develop their trust,” Burnett says.

“We worked hard at sending the right message. Word of mouth is the best thing in this business. If you don’t keep your word, or you don’t do good work, or you don’t handle yourself with integrity, your program will suffer.”

***

Step 3: Control the controllable; ignore the rest

Burnett is correct that integrity is paramount under these circumstances. And when integrity is absent, reputations are tarnished.

In the Firebirds’ case, Nilsen’s actions had lingering effects on the on-ice product. Even with fresh faces in charge, the franchise lost two marquee players in the off-season.

Offensive defenceman Vili Saarijarvi, a Detroit Red Wings prospect who will star for Team Finland at the 2017 world juniors, moved to the Mississauga Steelheads in June. It was a “personal decision” that is “somewhat complicated,” Saarijarvi’s agent Jay Grossman says now. And top scorer Will Bitten, a Montreal Canadiens third-round pick, simply refused to join training camp in Flint. A trade request landed him in Hamilton.

Attendance at Flint’s Dort Federal Credit Union Event Center is another issue. It is down about 400 per game after 16 home games, according to HockeyDB.com data.

“It’s fair to say that we had to regain the trust of the community, and I think we’ve done that,” says Papista, the Firebirds’ president. “We did lose some sponsors but, really, not too many. We had a good off-season as far as picking up some new business as well.”

The shockwaves of last season’s soap opera should equalize over time, both in terms of butts in seats and on-ice performance (Flint owns a 15-14-0-2 record and is in eighth place in an extremely strong Western Division).

Ten players on the Firebirds’ current roster are carryovers from the 2015-16 season. Peters and assistant captain Nick Caamano, both Dallas Stars prospects, have stuck around and can feel the tide turning.

“It’s definitely a lot better of a situation,” Caamano says. “The league stepped in, hired some great coaches and we’ve got good management. It’s definitely a nice change and we really like it so far … It’s stability and normality for us.”

Oulahen, for what it’s worth, is focusing on the present, not the past. Since Day 1 of his tenure, the ex-North Bay Battalion assistant coach has been preaching that “last year was last year and this is a fresh start for everybody.”

Culture, you see, is something a coach can control. “If there’s one slogan I say to these guys regularly it’s, ‘Let’s not waste time,’” Oulahen adds.

While detoxing from a debut season of immense turmoil is a less-than-ideal situation, the Firebirds seem to be making the best of it. It’s a work in progress, but the emphasis appears to be on “progress.”

As one scout phrased it, the Flint Firebirds are a scrappy bunch “playing with a bit of an eff-you attitude.”

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